The Mandatory Obama Supports Same-Sex Marriage Post

I.

A friend and I had a conversation a few years ago when he asked, “what do you think of gay marriage?”

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t think about gay marriage. I don’t really care.”

Since then, I’ve come to believe that the government has no business defining marriage. There should be civil unions allowed between any two people over the age of 18. From my background in health care, the example I’ve used is when a friend of mine was going to be a writer working different jobs with no benefits. Why couldn’t I have made him a dependent through a civil union the same way a spouse is considered a dependent for the sake of having benefits through my employer who provided them? Even though we’re both heterosexual, we were planning on living together and he would have to go uninsured while I paid the single contribution rate through my employer to have health insurance for only myself.

Likewise the government should give cousins, siblings, and grandparents the ability to become dependents. And of course, the person you consider to be your spouse is legally recognized only through a civil union. Put simply, your right as an 18 or above citizen would be your ability to make one (1) person your dependent for benefits, wills, etc. as if you are married. Since we don’t really use the word “partner” as often as “husband” or “wife” and no one says “we’re civil unioned” we’ll simply call gay couples in a civil union “married” and each spouse as “husband” or “wife.”

This would make divorce a lot less emotionally and financially painful than it is right now. Because civil unions would be easy to dissolve. But what about when couples fight over the house and custody of the kids? Very simple: whatever legal agreement they had for the house can be amended simply or fought over and whatever legal agreement they had for raising the children can be amended simply or fought over.

Yes, you read that correctly. The civil union legally joins you to another adult – that’s all it does. Any large purchase such as a home, car, HD television, etc. is made through a separate legal agreement between two adults as if they are co-owners of a business and there are the requisite CYAs for each person entering into that agreement. Maybe even a “Large Purchases We Made Jointly” agreement that covers everything and gets amended as assets are bought and sold.

Now if you are much more concerned about how the legal agreement works regarding the kids, then you’ve either never had a break-up that cost a significant amount of money or you’ve had the worst kind of break-up where kids are involved. While the government shouldn’t compel people to enter into a child-rearing agreement, most couples would be smart to enter into one as it would document who is financially responsible for a child and in what ways. This would make sense in the context of the protective actions of first-time parents who typically draft a will while increasing their life and disability insurance. This is not a huge change in behavior of a couple having or adopting a child.

And for all of the talk about “what about if a bisexual wants to marry two people?” or “this opens the door to polygamy.” That’s fine… in their religion. The government only allows one person to join with one other person in a civil union, but you can marry as many people as you want in whatever religion you are a part of.

If this brilliant compromised is realized and your religion won’t let you annul or divorce, then complain to them or convert to another religion. If you’re gay and your religion won’t let you get married, complain or convert to another. Remember the church and state are separated. The latter gave you an easy civil union and an equally easy dissolution of your civil union. That’s all the government is required to do. They don’t have time for your whining because they’re too busy studying studies.

Some initial polls showed Romney open up a lead late this week, but we’ll need to see what the polls look like in another week or two to fully capture the sentiment. Right now it looks like this might hurt Obama a bit politically and could be a possible advantage for Romney as evangelicals and social conservatives who are the most distrusting of Romney might now show enthusiasm through donations and volunteer efforts. We’ll have to wait and see if this in any way tempers the black vote or other religious Democrats.

This was all the result of Vice President Joe Biden opening his mouth when he shouldn’t have (which is all the time) and said he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage on Meet the Press. There was no way this was a planned announcement by Obama this week since White House Press Secretary was laughed at when asked to clarify the Administration’s position on the issue. Biden also apologized to Obama for going off-message on the issue.

The race is getting very interesting a lot sooner than I thought it would.